


courage is never forgotten

by ssolaris



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Link (Legend of Zelda), Memories, Novelization, POV Link (Legend of Zelda), Self-Hatred, Survivor Guilt, but also there's original scenes & i changed some dialogue from the game, link is in love with zelda, only a little bit sprinkled in tho hehe, so take as many angsty implications from that as u want, this is basically an au where everything is the same but link never lost his memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23151262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssolaris/pseuds/ssolaris
Summary: When he wakes up, Link remembers everything.
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 252





	courage is never forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> hsfdkksdfg i got back into this game in the last five months or so and i needed to make zelink angst. also sry i post so infrequently, school can suck my dick

In the span of a few hours, Hyrule is engulfed in chaos.

It’s not just the Calamity itself, which wreathes itself around the castle like a vice, strangling out the last remnants of surviving heritage within. It’s everything the Calamity brings with it, a raging storm that looms over the entirety of the kingdom. Flames race across the grass as he sprints through it, so fast that it feels like his legs are consumed in fire too; the skies are heavy with anguish, rolling over them and casting them into darkness.

As he runs, he is pelted with sheets of thick, sharp raindrops. Each one feels as though it pierces through his skin, soaking into his bones and weighing him down further and further with each desperate stride. Embers glitter through the smog of corrupted magic hazed across every square inch of Hyrule like an unruly fog, and lightning snaps sporadically across the swells of gray up above.

He aches. The adrenaline rush of when it all first started has long since faded, and he knows he’s only got so much left in himself. He feels his strength gradually leeching out with each distant cry for help, each screech of the Guardians, and how Zelda’s nails dig harder and harder into his palm until he’s sure they’ve drawn blood.

They make it past the Dueling Peaks Stable, and they keep going, because he isn’t in control of his body anymore and he only knows to keep running. His grip on Zelda is just as firm as hers is on him; he can’t lose her, can’t let her go—this is the one thing he’s supposed to do. More than any prophecies he’s heard about defeating the Great Calamity, he knows as well as the mud that clings to his boots and the rain slick against his face that he must protect Zelda with his life.

If they—if they can just make it to Kakariko Village, maybe she’ll be safe there. He can hide her away with all the Sheikah, and then he’ll be okay too. He can truly fight this fight once she’s safe, out of harm’s way.

“Link!”

The wind is knocked out of him when Zelda pulls at his arm, stopping them in their tracks. If not for her steady hold on his hand, he would’ve slipped and fallen from the slippery mud. The downpour is so awful that the trail is practically a river at this point.

He looks to her in askance, fear drawn vividly in his features, because they can’t stop, they need to hurry, but Zelda looks back at him with wide eyes and points past him to where they were heading.

Down a small ways, on the Kakariko Bridge, two Guardians crawl along the old cobblestone like spiders, completely barricading their path to the village. Ice furls up in his chest, squeezing his heart.

Zelda tugs at him, and he turns back to face her again. She gestures towards the swamp, to their right. There’s dozens more of the machines lurking around the rolling hills, their eyes swirling with blue madness, but he catches her meaning. The tall grass and the rain might be just enough cover for them to sneak by. They can head towards Hateno Village instead.

For a moment he hesitates, and then he nods, because he figures they’re running out of options anyways. They start off the trail and into the grass, and they make it a decent way through the field. The only thing still grounding him is Zelda’s hand in his, even coated in grime and sweat and precipitation. Otherwise, he thinks, he wouldn’t have made it this far.

And then there is that familiar bleating from behind, and he glances frantically over his shoulder to see a guardian in hot pursuit of them. Thankfully it already looks to be in fairly bad shape, but it’s still got enough functioning legs to give chase.

Without much thought, he throws Zelda down against the ground and lunges back towards the guardian, narrowly missing a combustible beam of red that grazes by and sends smoke and dirt spewing into the air where they had just stood. He heaves, and his lungs don’t feel like they’re working right anymore, like he can barely get in a breath, but there’s no time, no time, _no time._ When he draws the Master Sword it thrums a steady blue, buzzing against his palm. He slices through two of the creature’s legs and sends the blade directly into its eye.

The Guardian’s engine grumbles and dies, and it collapses into a mountain of dim gray metal.

Link aches.

He can’t breathe, he realizes, because the Calamity is so pungent in the air that he can burns down his throat. Stumbling away from the Guardian, he sputters and falls to one knee, with only his sword to keep him upright. He can barely see anymore, through the torrential rain and the deep fog; fatigue clings to him like a parasite, and he feels himself slowly dissolving.

Suddenly there is a hand on his shoulder, tense in its hold, and he stiffens only briefly before slumping again. Zelda’s breath is warm against his neck. She’s always so warm, so pristine, so pure.

He thinks of Hyrule Field and her collapsing in his arms. He thinks of the sobs that tumbled from her lips and _I tried and I failed them all,_ and feels tears prick his eyes.

“Link,” she gasps, and he can feel her trembling as much as he is. “Save yourself—go! I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.”

But he—he can’t just _forfeit,_ not when they’ve made it this far. And he certainly can’t just abandon her, not after months of helping one another train and explore the expanse of different regions together, not after the countless tear-filled nights they shared. She loathed him, once, for being some sort of martyr she thought she could never live up to, but she was wrong, because he still isn’t good enough to protect her now and she’s the only thing that’s keeping him sane anymore.

With a sharp inhalation, Link lurches back to his feet, his legs nearly failing him as he fights to retain his balance. Her hands are brushing over his back, precariously grabbing at him, trying to help. He feels like he’s lost in a dream, a nightmare, with no way out.

A Guardian reaches the zenith of what amounts to a pile of its brethren’s corpses, consumed in flames that whip bitterly against the rain. This one glares at them, and it’s inanimate, a machine, but the malice wafting from it feels palpable. He shudders and pushes Zelda behind him; he wields the Master Sword but it hangs slack in his grip, because he’s so weary he can barely even hold himself up.

Its eye blinks red and it takes aim, target locked directly onto Link.

And he—he doesn’t even have a shield he can use to parry or at least take a brunt of the force. His legs are sticks, on the brink of snapping and letting him fall to the ground. So all he can really do is just stand there, and wait, and make sure the Guardian is looking at him and not Zelda.

“ _No!_ ”

Something grabs him from behind and yanks him forcefully out of the way. Link stumbles backward, blinking blearily as gold spreads over the princess and then she isn’t how she has been, soaked from the rain and splattered in blood and mud—she is angelic and unblemished, her gown flowing around her waist elegantly as some sublime magic seems to bubble around her. A beam of light rockets into the sky and for the first time since the Calamity appeared tonight, he feels purity pass over him; security, warmth, love.

When the light fades, it’s still raining and the bleak fog persists, but something has shifted. The Guardian before them falters and shudders, before it shorts out and collapses. And following suit, so does every other Guardian that had still been scurrying around the field.

Zelda still stands in front of him, and she’s back to her tattered state, no longer glowing gold or emanating some unforeseen power. Her small frame shivers from the cold, seeming just as shocked at this new turn of events.

Looking at her, Link decides unwaveringly that she is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

He falls to the ground. The gravel digs into his side and the harsh rain scalds his wounds.

Distantly, he thinks he hears the princess murmuring something about the power, but everything seems so far away all the sudden. But then she isn’t so far anymore, she’s right beside him, and maybe she’s crying. “No, L-Link! _Get up!_ ”

She pulls him toward her, so she can cradle him against her chest. Now that he’s more propped up, the world feels like it tilts sideways a smidge. His head pounds incessantly and the urge to close his eyes and fall asleep screams against his temples.

As he glances up, he’s met with vibrant blue eyes, misted in a moisture that he wishes he had the strength to wipe away. Zelda’s lip quivers. “You’re—You’re going to be just fine.”

And despite everything, the pain and exhaustion that swallows him whole, Link smiles. Exhales. She feels so warm, against him.

“Zel…”

He falls, and though it’s all too dark and murky to really discern, he knows he’s already too far gone to ever come back. But he can feel her cries wracking her chest, and her hot tears spilling onto his cheek, a reprieve from the bitter cold raindrops. In his hand, the Master Sword hums, resting limp on his chest.

And then, there is nothing.

Just cold.

Dark.

Quiet.

_“… So he can… he can still be saved?”_

* * *

For a long time, he just drifts. He isn’t here, isn’t real, just _is._ Or maybe isn’t. He feels trapped, stuck, and he hates it, hates that he can’t see beyond the void of black that walls him in. It is suffocating.

He fades.

Finally, there is a light. Burning, luminous, gold. It slices through the darkness with practiced ease, like this was always what was supposed to happen, like this was always only temporary. The light appears before him, and he can see again, breathe again, live. He is no longer locked in stagnation. He can reach towards the light and crawl out of the emptiness and go back to where he belongs.

_“… Open your eyes…”_

Slowly, he tries, but the light on the other side is too intense. It hurts, even the small quantity of it that breaches past his eyelids. He clenches his jaw and thinks maybe it’s best if he goes back to sleep.

_“Wake up, Link.”_

That voice sends ripples of raw emotions over him, and he cannot decipher how exactly it makes him feel, but it brings pools of tears to his eyes that make him squeeze and blink them in frustration. In this process, he gradually adjusts to the light, until it is only a dim blue glow hanging overhead.

He realizes that he is freezing.

Whatever fluid he’d been soaked in begins to drain into nothing, and then he is just laying bare, prone, alone, staring up at the blue light. His skin feels like paper and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever have the strength to move.

Maybe he’s just stubborn, or stupid, but that irks him. He’s tired of being stuck. He wants to escape the dark, and he’s clearly one step closer but he’s still—trapped.

His first instinct is to feel his chest for his own tunic. Except, when he does bring a shaking hand up against his abdomen, he is startled to feel his own bare skin, still icy and pruned. A little damp from the stuff he’d been soaked in.

Soaked. Drenched. He feels like he hasn’t felt the heated embrace of sunlight in a while. The dry balm it brings with it every afternoon. He feels like—he feels like—

Wasn’t it raining? Why is he dry now, and how did he end up in—in a pool? The blue light remains, a mere lamp looming over him, and he’s so confused now, he swears it’d just been raining, so why—how did he-?

His head aches. _He_ aches. He—he’d been running, a lot, from something, for someone.

The voice, the voice, who—he had to—

Link feels his blood run cold, and he sits up abruptly, eyes blown wide, breath sharp.

“ _Zelda!_ ”

But this is all wrong. He’s not out in the marsh, he’s not with Zelda, he’s not where he’s supposed to be. He’s in a small, dark chamber, laced with a poisonous chill in the air that stings his skin. He shouldn’t be here, he should be—dammit, where’s Zelda?

Tentatively, Link brings his bare legs close, and then slides over the edge of the bath he’d lain in. The ground is coarse and cool against the bottoms of his feet, and he leaves damp prints behind as he patters through the decrepit room. In the midst of trying to find his footing, he stumbles a little haphazardly, his muscles sore as though they hadn’t seen exertion in weeks, maybe months. Though he really has no clue how long he’s been dormant in here.

Across the chamber a pedestal flickers to life, alight with veins of glowing blue. The top of it swivels and clicks, ejecting out a small tablet that looks to be made of similar technology. It’s a Sheikah Slate, thank the goddesses. Except, as he reaches the podium and grabs the slate to examine it, flipping through its catalogues and maps and databases, Link quickly realizes that it’s practically useless. It’s one that’s been untouched, or maybe it’s a new model, but whatever the case it doesn’t contain an ounce of data in it.

He’s shaking, but this time it’s not from exhaustion.

Despite his frustrations he takes it, because at the very least it can help him get out of here. There’s a smaller pedestal by what seems to be a gate or door, and with a quick tap of the slate it slides open. He is met with a staircase that ascends towards a blinding light up above, so intense he must squint.

Outside—that’s where he’ll get his answers. That’s where he can find Zelda and figure out what happened.

_“Link,”_ he hears, distant and murky, and yet so suddenly it makes his chest pang and his eyes water, _“You are the light. My—_ Our _light, that must shine upon Hyrule once again. Now go…”_

And so he does.

* * *

Link breaks.

He reaches the edge of the cliff and drinks it all in: Death Mountain peaking over the foggy horizon, the greenery swarmed beneath him, the gentle budding of sunlight tickling the skyline.

And he sees the castle, straight ahead. He sees it darker than he remembered, coated in a deep smog and barricaded by fallen towers. He sees the wisps of viscous purple spinning round the castle’s spires, and the terrible beast—Calamity Ganon—twisting around to unhinge its jaw and grumble resentfully, its eyes gleaming with malice.

He sees a flicker of light, beautiful and bright, barely able to pierce through the veil of darkness enveloping Hyrule Castle.

She whispers into his ear, a phantom, _“Please hurry, Link…”_

Those words slither into his head, each sharp and brutal, cutting through him faster than any Lynel could, draining him of everything he has. It hits him, all in that moment, what happened. Why he was sealed away in the chamber, why Zelda is gone, why Ganon is still here.

He lost.

* * *

As hurriedly as possible he makes it down the Great Plateau, and the world whirls past him as he does. He can’t focus. His body moves mechanically and fast, because he doesn’t have time to think and he can only act. He can only do whatever it takes to fix this.

Because Link will fix this. He will amend his mistake and restore peace and find Zelda—he knows she’s still out there, fighting with all she’s got against the Calamity. And she’s done a superb job, that much he can commend; for however long he was sealed away in that lonesome chamber, she had continued to keep the beast contained within the castle grounds. It was for that reason that he knew even more so that it was essential he finish off Ganon once and for all.

He treks idly along dusted trails, overgrown and blocked off by patches of monsters which he easily mows down, even with his shabby gear. During his journey he finds an adequate set of linen pants and a leather chest-piece, and he steals wooden clubs and bone marrow shields off every monster that he defeats.

Within a few hours he reaches the Dueling Peaks, harsh against the pale sky, and he cuts right through the middle. The sun will be setting soon and he figures it would be best if he stayed the night at the stables. He wants to reach Kakariko Village with a refreshed state of mind, ready to spend the entirety of tomorrow figuring out what the hell is actually going on.

The sky is a deep orange, nearly completely dark when he reaches the stables. Link enters and it’s just how he remembered—because he and Zelda often stopped by the various stables across Hyrule back during her training and the anticipation of the Calamity. A few travelers are scattered around the area, resting by the campfire outside or congregating near their beds within the structure. Thankfully, the man running the stables is kind enough to accept monster parts as compensation for a bed.

Link is out, and then up again by six in the morning. The entire night is restless and uncomfortable, and tinged with sympathy for his temporary roommates that had to deal with his incessant tossing and turning, but he doesn’t dwell on that too much. He has a mission that is far more important than costing some strangers a few hours of sleep.

He steps out of the structure to a foggy morning, hung low with sweeping gray clouds that look like they’ll start raining any moment. As his boots meet dirt road again, a cool, misty breeze spreads over him, deeply humid.

Then he makes the mistake of looking to his right.

Speckled across the fields adjacent to the trail are hundreds of Guardians. Link realizes he is staring at a graveyard. They’re all deactivated, some overturned or coated in moss or missing limbs. But they linger behind, a ghost, a bitter memory that stings when he thinks about it.

But he’s already _back there,_ in the icy rain smacking against his face, the mud soaking his tunic, the pain entrenched in every square inch of his body. He sees flashing blue eyes and frenzied red lasers and he sees Zelda, golden and perfect, doing what she was always meant to do: stop the Great Calamity.

He sees them losing. He sees her crying over his dying body as the edges of his vision darken while the agony leeching from his limp form becomes numb.

Link runs a hand over his face. It is early morning, a light fog misted over the ground. The Guardians are all dead, not a threat. A few civilians chatter pleasantly behind him to themselves. He is unscathed aside from a couple scratches, but intact nonetheless.

(And Zelda is not by his side, like she once was.)

Pained, he pushes onward.

* * *

Kakariko Village is wrapped in the blue skies of the afternoon. He treads carefully down the trail towards the temple across from the south entrance, head low. As he does, a sick feeling swells in his gut that he does his best to ignore. Link refuses to let himself get a good look around, because it’s overwhelming, terrifying—but he gathers this increasingly horrible sense that he does not recognize any one of these Sheikah people.

In the past, he’d never visited this place too often. But he’d certainly visited at least a few times, as he and Zelda were close with Impa and both wanted to ensure that they both could earn the trust of the entire kingdom, seeing as they were the two chosen ones destined to save them all.

He never really knew any of the Sheikah personally, except for those like Impa or Purah, but during his painstaking walk across the village to temple, Link cannot shake the feeling of foreignness. The isolation. The strange looks he’s thrown, like he’s never stepped foot on these grounds and is offensive for doing so.

Silently, he hikes up the steps to the temple upon reaching the heart of the village, and meets a young girl no older than him at the top. As soon as they make eye contact her face reddens and she becomes completely withdrawn. She is a stranger, and yet—there’s something so familiar in her features.

“A man!” she gasps quietly to herself, covering her face hastily. Then she falters and lets her gaze peek through; whatever she sees completely alters her mood, and she lets her hands fall while staring at him with newfound wonder. “You—you have a Sheikah Slate. You… are you the—the hero? The one my grandmother speaks of?”

Link blinks, not quite expecting a reaction like that. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting at all, really, but the way she talks to him send a deluge of mixed feelings rushing to his head. “I—who are you?”

The bashfulness instantly returns and she subconsciously hides her face as best as she can from him. “Oh-! I’m… my name is P—Paya.” She swallows thickly. “Sorry, I’m just—bad at speaking.”

He smiles as placatively as he can, because the last thing he wants is for her to feel even more uncomfortable. And on some level, he’s hoping a kind smile will smother the grim, unwelcome thoughts pervading his resolve. “It’s okay. May I enter?”

“O-Of course!” Paya nods dutifully, her eyes trained on her feet and her smile paper thin. She bows courteously and steps away from the door as a sign of hospitality, which he can appreciate. Link nods back to her and steps inside, and he’s still all smiles and friendliness, but on the inside he can feel his heartstrings ripping apart.

When he opens the doors, there is only one person inside. She is small and frail, and yet with her immaculate posture in her seat, bracketed by candles with her ceremonial Sheikah hat on, she exudes a certain amount of authority. The woman’s head lifts to reveal tired, beady eyes and a wrinkled face, firm and tense with age.

“You’re finally awake,” she murmurs, her lips twitching slightly. “It has been quite a long time, hasn’t it, Link?”

And it hits him.

He knows, without a doubt, that the woman before him is Impa. The same woman he saw not one day ago, running through drills with her Sheikah troops and laughing with Zelda. Youthful, steadfast Impa—who was once not much older than Link—now sat not three feet away, generations ahead of him.

That’s why he recognized Paya outside. The grandmother she mentioned is Impa.

Link is quivering, he realizes, but he is too shaken to care or feel embarrassed. He attempts a step forward but his muscles have lost their strength. Unceremoniously, he falls to his knees, and his eyes burn intensely as he struggles to find any words to say.

Impa’s eyes soften. She stares for a long time, pressing her mouth into a thin, contemplative line. “… Oh, Link.”

He grasps at his chest, his shirt collar, trying to remind himself of his beating heart and powerful lungs just beneath his skin. He tries to remind himself that this is real and happening, he’s not dead yet, there must be a way to reverse this.

“How,” he rasps out, with great effort. At this point his vision is blurred with thick tears. “H—How long?”

At this question, Impa’s expression turns grave. Link feels sick again.

“One hundred years.”

_No, no, no._

A hand extends into his line of sight, bony and fragile. “Link.”

It takes him a long time to blink away enough tears to comply with her unspoken command and grab it. Her fingers squeeze hard into his hand, and he lets himself focus on how grounding it feels to be held.

Impa takes in a long, deep breath. “One hundred years ago, Link, you fell. Princess Zelda deemed to place you into a sacred slumber in order to save your life. She left behind breadcrumbs for you to finish the job when it was your time to awaken again, and then… she went alone to face Ganon.”

He feels so jittery and anxious that he can hardly sit still. He can hardly begin to absorb the implications of Impa’s words as they bounce around hazardously in his head. “What does she need me to do?” _How do I fix this?_ is what he doesn’t ask.

“She entrusted me with telling you this simple task: free the Divine Beasts. They have since been corrupted by the Calamity; your companions, the Champions, never escaped after Ganon appeared. Avenge them and the Divine Beasts. Find the sword of legend and save Hyrule.”

Vacantly, Link stares at her. A numbness crawls over his stiff form, locking up his muscles and joints. When he speaks, the words roll off his tongue flat and quiet. “So they’re all dead?”

It’s possible that Impa’s eyes water up when he says that, but everything feels so slow and cut off from him and blurred that he feels like he isn’t in the right frame of mind to fully comprehend the situation. “I know not what happened of the Champions, just that they have never been seen since Ganon won. But the princess—Link, she has never given up hope, not in one hundred years. I can feel her fighting every day, and I can feel her strength dwindling. You must hurry if you ever hope to save her.”

_She’s alive,_ is all that resonates in his head. _She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive._

_I can still fix this, I have to fix this, I must fix this,_ rumbles right behind that thought, a universal truth that he will never give up on until Ganon is dead and Zelda is in his arms again.

* * *

When he arrives at Hateno Village, because Impa had advised that such would be the best place to start his journey, Link already feels like he’s on the brink of collapse. Each step is strained and he knows already that this quest will be cumbersome.

In the past, Link would have never thought like this. As a young boy he was hardly eroded with experience in battle or out in the world, but that had exhilarated him. He was part of the Royal Guard, the legacy of all those mighty knights constantly beaming down upon him, inviting him to join their ranks. It was his dream to become the strongest, to protect the land he loved so dearly with his life, and prove that he could do it to any that stood in his way.

As he got a little older, he was eventually allowed to actually use weaponry; to wield a blade and draw arrows back against the crisp string of a bow, to stand in formation with his brothers and sisters in arms within the castle grounds of Hyrule. But he never ventured out far from the central fields, maybe because he was always so busy with training or maybe because the world was so large and unknown and different from the one he’d come to learn that he felt too overwhelmed by it.

That all changed, that fateful day one year ago—one hundred and one years ago—when he was declared Hero of Hyrule, destined to carry the Master Sword at his side and protect the princess at all costs. She disliked him at first, and to an extent his insecurities chastised him with a biting reminder that she had every right to. At times he felt compelled to do anything but speak, and just follow her around and keep his head low and sword high when danger found its way into their path. He was with her to complete a job.

For months, Zelda despised him. On a surface level, she hated him for being such an obedient little soldier, nothing more than her shadow wherever she went. But on a deeper level, he knew, she hated him for being what she could never be—for actually fulfilling his destiny.

Each visit they took to the fabled springs, as he idled by the side while she knelt in the cool waters and prayed endlessly to the goddesses, he heard the pain soaked in her words, the frustration that her powers would seemingly never awaken. And as they traversed the entirety of Hyrule, meeting new species of people and encountering all sorts of strange creatures and plants and artifacts, he witnessed the unmatched passion and adoration that she held for the world.

He learned that her strength came not from her destiny, but something far greater that she never quite realized in time—and he thinks she learned, as each day passed and he fell more and more in love with her, that his loyalty to her was not bound by a contract, but an unspoken devotion buried deep in his heart that he’d never revoke for an instant.

And _he_ learned, within the year he got to know Princess Zelda of Hyrule, that exploring the kingdom really wasn’t that scary. He’d only needed a companion to join him.

Link’s trek to Hateno Village is flooded with a blistering rainstorm that burns his skin. The trees above thrash violently and his boots squelch and suction to the mud as he tries his hardest to trudge onwards. The entire time he is miserable, and he yearns to feel her hand in his once again; the lack of certainty that such a thought is ever obtainable pierces right through his chest like a jagged knife, and that feeling never leaves him.

It’s like all the forces that compose the grand universe are telling him to just give up and stop pushing forward. And with the foreboding bleakness that follows him with each step, Link can’t say he’s fully sure why he is still trying—just that he _is,_ and that his legs keep moving despite himself.

When he reaches the village he wants to cry, but he can’t, there’s no time. He rents a room at the inn but after an hour of restlessness, he decides that sleep will only haunt him tonight; in its stead, he heads back downstairs to the small bar on the first floor and takes a seat. He’s handed a complementary water and takes pathetically small, measured sips from it.

Some time passes before two large men enter the tavern and take a seat just a few stools away from Link, muttering to themselves.

“Shit,” says one, and he sounds a little shaken. “That was terrifying.”

Both of them are soaked to the bone. The storm continues to wage outside, hammering against the walls as the occasional crack of thunder splits across the night sky.

“I’m telling you,” the other one gasps out between heavy breaths, “there’s gotta be some sort of militia. I know we’re never gonna get something like the Royal Guard, but we need a better line of defense against those—things.”

At the mere mention of _those things,_ Link’s mind immediately drifts to Guardians. Of course those are the greatest threat right now, because Ganon happens to be contained at the castle and he’s positive that anything not along the perimeter of Hyrule has been completely vacated. He shifts slightly to peer over at the two burly men, and notices that they’re shaking with exertion, as if they’d sprinted to this village. It probably was so.

“What we need is for those damn Sheikah to stop being such hermits and start developing more technology,” the first man bites out. “Nobody has any clue how to kill those Guardians and it’s going to be the death of us all.”

The other shrugs. “I mean, we have Purah. And there’s only so much she can do in that puny little lab of hers.”

“It’s just—it’s so—nothing will ever get done, the way things are now. Everyone’s hiding instead of fighting and it’s all because the king was too weak and the princess was a fucking _coward._ Hyrule never stood a chance against the Calamity; we’re all just gonna die out eventually.”

Something hard and bitter settles in Link’s stomach, and he abruptly stands, his stool scraping against the rotting floor. Both of the men startle and turn to him as though they hadn’t even noticed he was there in the first place. Part of him just wants to go back upstairs to bed, but part of him keeps him standing still, clenching his fists by his sides as he glowers at them.

Hesitantly, he tries to force out some response, because the slander that man just spit out is outraging to him. Link closes his eyes and tries to muster some cordiality, but he’s so close to throwing his glass of water right into the man’s face.

“Don’t you dare speak of Princess Zelda like that. She was—she _is_ the bravest person I know, and if it wasn’t for her you two wouldn’t even be here right now.”

One of them narrows his eyes at him. “Whatever. A hundred years ago she messed up bad, and now we’re paying the consequences.”

“You couldn’t understand the _half_ of what it means to pay the consequences,” Link snarls, and he can feel his blood boiling beneath his skin. “You couldn’t even begin to _fathom_ what she had to sacrifice—what she had to _lose_ —to keep Hyrule intact. So shut the hell up.”

The man clamps his mouth shut, and Link storms upstairs. He spends the rest of the night gazing emptily up towards the ceiling until the storm outside fizzles out and morning sunlight peeks through the window, a gentle whisper of a new day.

* * *

It isn’t until much later that he finds himself alone, staring at a red beam locked directly onto his chest.

He’d decided to take a detour after liberating Vah Medoh to the northwestern edges of Central Hyrule before making his way to the final Divine Beast he needs to take care of, atop Death Mountain. There’s a thoughtlessness to the excursion, one that Link can’t particularly explain to himself, but maybe it’s the simple fact that he needs to get out of the rut of traveling between each society in the kingdom and solving all of the citizens problems, day after day.

That isn’t to say he despises the work he’s doing—being a royal knight is what he signed up for one hundred years ago, after all. Now he’s just got the addition of cleaning up the mess he left behind.

But by now he’s at a point where each step feels just a little more cumbersome, and each morning it gets harder to peel his eyes open and drag himself out of his cot. So maybe, he decides, he’ll take a day to himself, to just settle in some soft grass and observe the rich environment around him.

Part of it is this other thing that’s been bothering him since the first Divine Beast he freed, Vah Ruta of the Zora peoples. He had this dream—or perhaps it was a vision, but it was hard to tell because sometimes the days and nights seem to blur together and he often can’t even tell if he’s really hearing Zelda’s voice or if it’s all in his head. But he knew this—this apparition of whatever sort, _knew_ it like it happened yesterday. Returning to the real world again after envisioning it, waking up alone in the balmy sunrise of southern Lanayru, felt like being torn away from his whole world.

Zelda had been in it. And she was different than how he remembers her—well, different isn’t really the word, but just—he can’t even describe how jarring it was to see this version of her, all quips and buoyant laughter and keen playfulness, that deep intuition in her wide eyes. Lately Link had simply grown accustomed to flashes of torrential rain and tears and splatters of blood he sees every time he closed his eyes; the constant murmurs of her voice telling him to _hurry, you must save Hyrule,_ haunt him constantly.

But this dream—it had been something special. Something he’d clung to in the following weeks, as he traveled west to the Gerudo Desert, and later north to the Rito Village.

He had been with Zelda, and he wasn’t really doing much other than running his eyes along the verdant horizon of Central Hyrule and nodding mindlessly as she rambled on about plants and elixirs and whatever smart things she always seemed so invested in. Link had received a modest education and he was at least literate enough to hold a semi-intellectual conversation, but Zelda always seemed on a whole new tier of brilliance. Half the time he couldn’t even begin to keep up with her, but he was so fascinated by her own devotion to everything and learning and enlightenment that he found it to be his favorite thing to listen to her.

They did that a lot on their travels. Between diplomatic meetings with all the leaders of different societies, and all the trips to the sacred springs, Zelda led him to all these special areas that always seemed like an entirely new realm, exclusive to just him and her, between the creatures that roamed every crevice of Hyrule and the breadth of flora and terrain that stretched across the kingdom. And he’d trail behind her quietly while she went on these large tangents of thinking aloud and making exciting discoveries along the way.

It was hard to not enjoy the princess’ company, not when she had so much to say and do, when she had so much passion just bursting at the seams. In these moments, Link sometimes found himself loathing the king and the prophecy and everyone that placed the weight of the world on her shoulders. It wasn’t that he thought she couldn’t handle it; he just knew that she had so much potential to be something greater than some innocent little girl who did her prayers every night and stayed locked up in her castle.

Zelda had knelt down in the tall grass, in this hazy dream that somehow felt so powerfully corporeal. Her rambling voice was abruptly cut off, stirring Link from his own stupor of half-listening, and he dropped down beside her to observe whatever it was that had caught her attention.

A flower. Its leaves curled to make way for newly born buds, a beautiful ivory that blossomed quietly from the sea of green. Each petal was dashed with a spray of soft blue, and all sorts of funny looking stems and pods poked out of its center that Zelda probably knew all about, but he couldn’t begin to explain.

He’d found himself glancing between the lonesome flower and her, bent so close to it and captivated in unadulterated wonder. Her hair shimmered an elegant gold in the vibrant sun and her rosy cheeks were flushed, eyes dilated.

“This one here is called the silent princess,” Zelda said after a moment. “It’s a rare, endangered species.” She brought her hand to her chin, thoughtfully. “Despite our best efforts, we can’t get them to grow domestically yet. It can only thrive out here in the wild.”

She laced her fingers delicately around the flower’s thin stem, and ran her fingers up to graze the bottoms of its petals. All the while, Link watched in a stunned silence, absolutely captivated by the scene. Looking back, he thinks, this may have been one of the critical moments in which he decided that the deep thrumming in his chest that beat like a heavy drum every time he laid his eyes on her was not just loyalty, but something much more potent.

After gazing at it for a little while longer, Zelda pulled away, as though scared that her looming shadow would impede on the plant’s sunlight. When she spoke again, her tone was even considerably softer, like she didn’t want to disturb its afternoon nap.

“All that we can hope is that the species will be strong enough to prosper on its own.”

Since that dream, Link has garnered somewhat of an obsession. It’s silly, but something about the vision had moved him in such a way that every new area he ventured into, he always kept an eye out for silent princesses. The idea that they could’ve gone extinct during his hundred year slumber made him sick. And he knows, _he knows,_ from all of what Zelda had taught him, that despite how frail it all seems, the flora of Hyrule is resilient and strong.

So they couldn’t have just died out, right?

Link swallows, and a lump of poignant emotion is forced down his throat with it. All this time, his unspoken search for the silent princess had been fruitless. But maybe, he’d told himself, he just hadn’t been looking in the right places.

This spot right here, in a large clearing and close enough to the castle that he gets to soak in all of its wretched, monstrous glory so close up—this has to be it. Because he knows resolutely that this is the same spot he was in with Zelda all that time ago, when they’d knelt in the grass and watched it sway gently in the breeze, its petals so beautiful and robust.

He scours the area for a while, and thinks distantly to himself that this probably isn’t the vacation day he should be taking from his adventure, because this isn’t relaxing, it’s only making him more anxious every second he spends without finding a single silent princess—but the idea is smothered before he lets it get the best of him. After so long, though, Link tires of his pointless search that feels near impossible, and stops to lean on a sturdy tree and look over at Hyrule Castle.

Its presence is so imposing, now that he’s so much closer than he’s ever been since before the Calamity. On some subconscious level, he’s refused to approach it up until now. Instead he just focused on the mission at hand and stuck to the outer perimeter of the land. But it’s here that he can truly get a good look at its sickly complexion. He sees the wisps of corrupted spirits that race around its spires scraping the pale sky, and the shadows buried deep within its walls; purple malice ripples over it like a blanket of toxins. The sight send shudders down his spine.

And then he hears a familiar rumbling in the ground, and when he looks down at his chest there’s an unsteady red circle locked onto his chest—and his heart drops.

The Guardian moves fast, faster than he remembers back when the Calamity was first unleashed and havoc reigned down upon Hyrule. Its long, unnatural legs cleave into the dirt to lurch it forwards as it races towards Link, its eye gleaming maddeningly at him. Violet-red veins peak through the crevices of its meticulous architecture, as though it is bleeding with corruption.

Link already has his shield and sword drawn, retreating backwards and trying to circle around it, never stopping in place for one moment because doing so would only ensure his demise. Its eye starts to swell up an explosive blue and his breath hitches as he dives to the side, just narrowly missing one of its beams that bursts into the ground and sends up billows of smoke and dirt in its wake.

He hasn’t faced a Guardian since he’s woken up, he realizes horrifyingly, as he scrambles back to his feet and tries to put some distance between them. Only the half-dead husks of machines scattered by the Dueling Peaks, but those didn’t really count. All this time, Link had been so scared to fight them—it was these awful behemoths that led to his downfall in the first place.

Thankfully he is able to dodge its blasts, but some of them narrowly miss him and he can feel the hems of his tunic charring from the flames. It’s too fast. He needs to slow it down.

After another explosion sounds behind him Link instantly launches himself toward it, and it’s not sentient but it almost seems startled at his sudden approach from how its legs skitter anxiously beneath it. Before it can start charging up energy again, he brings his sword above his head and then slices clean through its leg after just four powerful hacks at the tough material. Blue electricity spurts violently from its socket, and surely enough the Guardian loses its balance.

Except it still has another three legs, and it won’t take long for it to reorient itself and start attacking again, knowing how fast thinking and moving these things are. Link is quick to round its circumference and cut off the remaining limbs until it’s a useless stub of metal stuck in the ground. Its head swivels angrily to face him and the coiled tendrils of red beneath its gray body flash relentlessly.

It fires again from its eye and this time he doesn’t have enough time to react, so he’s sent flying backwards with a vicious burn coursing over the front of his right leg. From where he’s sprawled in the grass several feet away, dizzy from the blow, Link decides to draw his bow. It’s the Great Eagle Bow that he earned for his efforts in helping the Rito just before coming here, and it’s powerful, that much he knows. He draws back a trio of bomb arrows because that’s the best he’s got right now, and launches them directly at the Guardian. For a moment it is swallowed in smoke and burning red, and then spokes of blue light pierce through the flames, and when it finally clears, all that remains is a pile of shrapnel.

Link laughs breathlessly to himself as he leans back in the grass, his body throbbing with pain and adrenaline. He did it. He did it. That—That wasn’t so bad.

Something patters near his head, outside of his field of vision; whatever it is, it’s a much smaller, much more peaceful creature. Lethargically, he rolls onto his stomach so he can get a better look, and is pleasantly surprised to be met with the placid, bulging gaze of a stout little toad. It meets his eyes with a quiet curiosity, and ribbits politely at him. He probably looks like a mess right now.

But the gentle creature brings a smile to Link’s face, so he relaxes where he lays, crossing his arms beneath his chin and watching in fascination as it hops around the near vicinity, clearly wary of the seared blotches of grass all around and the residual smoke drifting above.

A warmth settles in his chest as he recalls the ending to his vision in Lanayru. Zelda’s solemn words had reverberated past him and rendered him speechless for a minute, only for her to light up at the sight of a similar reptile, scooping him up in her hands and thrusting it before Link. He vividly remembers how animated she was, how dazzling her eyes were as her words stumbled past her lips, evidently too slow to ever hope to keep up with her constantly working mind.

And he remembers the teasing grin on her face when she shoved the toad into his face, insisting he taste it for the sake of science and laughing at his disgusted sneer and attempts to get away. Her laughter still rings in his ears as though echoing through a long chasm, like she’s only waiting just at the end of it, not too far away.

Tiredly, he rolls onto his back again, to face the destroyed Guardian’s remains and the distant threat of Hyrule Castle a ways behind it. Something melancholy in his chest aches at the sight, and he reluctantly pulls himself onto his feet.

The toad skips ahead of him, bounding toward the dark castle readily. He gives it a wave it won’t ever see, as a way of bidding farewell and wishing it safe travels—especially as it approaches a place even he isn’t quite ready to venture to yet. But something in his heart tells him, it’s going to turn out just fine.

* * *

Stood before the Lost Forest, Link feels a little breathless. He doesn’t even know if it’s good or bad; some amped up anticipation ricocheting around his body, or a thorough sense of dread spreading over all of his nerves and tendons.

After freeing all of the Divine Beasts, he returned to Impa for guidance. _I’ve done it,_ he had told her, _but I still don’t feel ready._

She had replied, _you may never feel ready, hero, but you can always prepare more._

Subsequently, Link has found himself spending the last week pulling himself together. He journeyed to the northeast coast of the kingdom to introduce himself to Robbie of the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab, who granted him the opportunity to craft much stronger gear that would definitely aid in his future arrival at Hyrule Castle.

He spent a few days fighting off Guardians and adjacently growing more skilled in taking them down. He returned to Rito Village to hone in his archery skills and finally willed up the resolve to take down the Lynel lurking by Zora’s Domain (which, admittedly, was not as bad as he thought it would’ve been).

Now Link has reached his final step. He needs to enter the forest, and find what has been waiting dormant for him this whole time; the key to defeating Ganon.

Initially the woods are lush and green, and he sticks to the manmade path as he hikes uphill towards the sunrise. He keeps his shield, blade, and bow strapped to his back, but those, plus his tunic and trousers and boots and hood, as well as his satchel full of elixirs and miscellaneous goods, proves quite a feat for him to carry. But he’s certainly rebuilt most of his muscle to its former glory since his reawakening, so it’s only a nuisance on the back of his mind.

What really preoccupies him is a much greater weight. Lately he doesn’t get much sleep anymore from the stress of the Calamity. Monsters seem to hide in every shadow and there’s this thin blanket of exhaustion draped over everyone he meets—like they’re all growing weary of being trapped in this purgatory of chaos. Sometimes an absurd idea pokes through the thick wall of his enigmatic rationale he’s built around himself, an illusion, like maybe tomorrow morning Ganon will spread from the castle to the rest of the land, or maybe the Guardians will gain intelligent thought and become unstoppable, or maybe Zelda will die and—

_Can’t think like that, can’t think like that, can’t think like that._

For a moment Link is disoriented. In the midst of his contemplations his surrounds have transformed into a haze of mysticism, and it takes him a second to readjust and remember the last time he was in the Lost Woods, over one hundred years ago. It was only one other time, and Zelda had been his guide. Now he has to figure out how to maneuver this maze on his own.

The trees are more sparse here, the grass unkempt and coarse against his shins, jabbing through his pants. He treads forward for a while, keeping a keen eye out for anything useful, until he finds himself upon a singular, stone arch. It looks like it once belonged to some grand palace, but now it is barely a single wall of stone, its edges fractured and swathed in moss and decay. Just through the arch is a lonesome wooden plinth, holstering a flame that licks excitedly at the enchanted fog. Tentatively, Link strays to some brush to find an abandoned branch, and then steals some of the fire as a makeshift torch.

He glances around, blinking lethargically through the humid air. Speckles of dust scatter around about him like snow; upon second glance, he thinks maybe it could be some sort of corporeal flecks of energy from fairies, but it’s hard to tell. Eventually he spots a similar torch to the first he found, and heads toward it with his alight branch in hand, its embers dissolving curiously into the fog as though the magic laced within was absorbing the fire itself.

Link follows the arbitrary trail of stands for a little while, and each one seems further from the last until he’s almost completely lost. And then he truly is lost, and it seems like there is no pattern for him to follow to get out again. Feeling his chest tightening with anxiety, he tries to breathe deeply and stay calm. He feels claustrophobic, despite how far and few the trees are. It must be the thick mist clouding his vision, twisting around the dark trunks and weaving into the grass as though it is sentient.

Finally he finds what looks to be a cave entrance, but it’s difficult to say. He gets closer and realizes it is some sort of canyon, with looming cliffsides barricading him into a long, narrow path. It seems like the right way to go, so he follows his gut and continues onward.

Gradually, the fog disperses and the mysterious white specks are lost to the wind like pollen. The grass is muffled by a newly forged dirt path, and plant life begins to make itself known again, as he passes the occasional bushel or flowerbed.

He discovers a massive tree trunk, hollowed out through the middle and turned on its side like a tunnel. This feels familiar, now, he thinks as he smiles to himself. _He made it._

Upon reaching the other side, he feels back where he started, when he first entered the Lost Woods and everything was rich and verdant and full of life. But somehow this place seems more secret, enriched with a deep essence of some ethereal power. Before him, an overgrown stone pathway stretches forward until stopping just twenty feet away. Link walks it cautiously, feeling almost scared that if he were to disturb this scene in any way, it would instantly crumble before him.

Link stops at the steps at the end of the path, his breath stuttering out of him. His prize awaits him, elegantly placed in the ground like it has been there since the dawn of the universe.

The Master Sword.

He exhales, slow and long. Its blade is just slightly scuffed up, but no longer stained in dirt and blood; instead, the metal glints charmingly in the blotted sunlight that peers through the heavy canopy of forest above. When Link lets his eyes fall closed and wraps his fingers around its cool, indigo hilt, he feels a small spark of power surge up his arms, and trembles in response.

For a moment, he only holds it, his grip lax. Energy tingles across his body like the sword is greeting him from his long absence, and he gets caught in this quiet pause, like when he opens his eyes again he’ll be back in the pristine Hyrule Castle, accepting the Master Sword for the first time in the ceremony and being inducted as Zelda’s knight.

_“Link,”_ someone whispers, and he freezes up. Her voice is like a kiss to his cheek. _“You are our final hope. The fate of Hyrule rests with you!”_

He feels cold, nimble hands wrap over his own, grasping the blade with him. They squeeze his hands tenderly, reassuringly, and they feel all too familiar—so familiar that for a moment Link is too scared to open his eyes, like he can almost see those golden locks and that beautiful smile just past his eyelids—

Sharply, he gasps and staggers backwards, the Master Sword’s energy suddenly searing into his palms. He glances around but she is not here; nobody is here. It had just been in his head.

From above, a deep, grandiose voice yawns and groans into wakefulness, and Link starts briefly before calmness settles in as his memory reminds him: he is, in fact, not quite alone. An old friend has been awaiting him here alongside the legendary sword.

The Great Deku Tree furrows his tree branch brows. “Who is that? Did I doze off again?”

Unable to find his voice, Link sets his jaw and swallows his anxieties to gaze firmly up at the deity. Then his shoulders slacken, because he’s frankly tired of having to constantly put on this show of the perfect, stoic hero, and he gives the tree a genuine smile. He hums contemplatively back at Link, squinting uncertainly.

“Well, well… It’s you. You finally decided to return.” The Deku Tree huffs out a drowsy laugh. “After one hundred years, I’d nearly given up hope on seeing you again. Even _my_ patience has limits, you know.”

“I…” Link looks down at his boots. “I came as soon as I could. For years I was—I think I nearly died when the Calamity first awakened, and when I woke up next I was in some shrine, rejuvenated again.”

The tree lets out a thoughtful noise. “So you have come back for the sword that seals the darkness, to defeat the Great Calamity?” He frowns. “I must caution you: as you are now, I cannot say whether you are still worthy or not. So much time has passed that if the sword were to deem you too weak, you would surely lose your life where you stand.”

His heart skips a beat, and he concentrates his gaze back on the blade protruding before him. He can almost feel ripples of power wafting from it like heat from a smoldering fire, in dire need of rekindling. If it accepts him—he could be the one to rekindle that, to restore justice. But that’s a matter of whether it decides Link is still worthy.

One hundred years ago, he was worthy. And he may have never fully understood why, but he accepted it, and he could feel the corporeal connection he shared with the Master Sword. Now that he’s been so disconnected from everything for so long, he really can’t say. Maybe he lost his worthiness when he fell to Ganon all that time ago, and forced Zelda to trap herself in a century of endless fighting.

The Deku Tree chuckles heartily, clearly reading the dismay written across his face, as though he knows something Link doesn’t. “Best of luck, young one.”

Link nods steadfastly, determination swelling in his chest. He wraps his hands back around the hilt and hunkers down to call upon all the strength his body will allow for. A pulse of light throbs from the base of the sword, pierced into the stone pedestal. Fire races up his arms and down his body, furling up in his head. His breath is sucked out of him and he feels like he’s stuck at the bottom of a lake, desperately swimming to the surface as his vision grays around the edges and his lungs ache from emptiness.

A brilliant glow wraps around the blade and swirls over his hands—the back of his left hand, strangely, hurts the most, and his vision is so blurred but he swears he almost sees a shimmer of gold on it. The pain that wracks his body is everywhere and engulfs all of his senses, but he feels the reprieve of the sword subtly inching out of the ground.

It’s so close, so close, _so close,_ and he feels like he’s just at the surface of the water and if he doesn’t breach the surface right now his lungs will shrivel up, but it can’t be that much longer, not when he’s so close—

Light overtakes him.

Pain is swallowed in the soft embrace of the late afternoon breeze, and the heavy weight of metal in palms. A silhouette kneels down and places the weapon on the ground, chipped with exertion and coated in mud and fractures. The sun’s glow almost seems like it wants to heal the sword.

“Your master will come for you. Until then, you shall rest safely here.”

Her dress is torn and blemished with blood, and her luscious hair is matted and knotted. As she trembles over the fallen blade, hands clasped before her blotchy, tear-stained face, her words come out quiet and forlorn.

“I cannot say what will become of him when he emerges from the Slumber of Restoration,” she whispers, like a lullaby, “but please trust me when I say that I know he will arrive before you yet again.”

Before her, the Great Deku Tree speaks solemnly. “If I may be so bold, what is it that you are planning to do next, princess?”

She rises to her feet, and despite the turmoil behind her eyes she keeps a strong face that is so wonderfully bright and perfect in the caress of the sun. “The Master Sword,” she begins, wistfully. Something flickers in her gaze as she peers back down at it, like flashes of a thunderstorm and a limp body in her arms haunt her vision. “… I heard it speak to me. It seems my role is unfinished—there is still something I must do.”

The tree smiles serenely. “I sense there is great strength in your dedication.”

Zelda hugs herself and shifts her jaw, straining against the emotion threatening to burst out of her in a cacophony of agony. “I—I must ask of you, when he returns, to please relay a message. Tell him… Tell him I—”

“Now, then. Words intended for him would sound much better in the tones of your voice, don’t you think?”

She looks back at her clasped hands, and the desolation wrought in her face falls victim to a hint of something stronger. She smiles to herself. “… Yes.”

And she picks up the sword, her face set, as she seals it into the ground. It locks into place, lonesome for another hundred years.

Link blinks open his eyes to the solitude of the Lost Woods. When he looks down, the Master Sword shimmers before him, and he feels its warmth spread over him, its power enrich him with new light. His lips curl up unwittingly, and he keeps his firm grip as he looks back to the Great Deku Tree.

“After you were separated from the sword, the princess thought to bring it here, where she knew it would be safe under my watch,” the deity says. “She continues to fight, trapped deep within the confines of Hyrule Castle.”

Looking at the sword in his hands, he nods.

“Her heart cascades with faith that you will return.” The tree sighs. “She has a smile like the sun; I would do much to feel its warmth upon me once again.”

His heart aches with a similar yearning. For a little while, Link allows tears to fall freely down his face, and never once relinquishes his hold on the sword.

* * *

From deep within the catacombs of Hyrule Castle, Link wipes the blood dripping from his nose. Calamity Ganon attempts to retreat to the wall on its grotesque, spindly legs, snarling like the fiend it is, but as he launches another arrow it loses its footing and drops back to the ground in a worthless heap.

It struggles to stand up again, screeching in pain. Its mane falls messily in its face and from beneath that, Link locks onto the unnerving glare of its vividly red eyes. Corporeal malice streams and gushes from its wounds in the form of black smoke and fiery embers, and it lets out a resounding, infuriated cry as it drags itself painstakingly closer to Link, too weak to even lift its cleaver. He shudders and stumbles backwards as Calamity Ganon’s muscles bulge and contract unnaturally, before it is overcome with light and combusts in a burst of gore.

Link exhales.

The chamber remains dark, filled with a thick haze of dark magic that lingers far too long in the air; for a moment, he’s back with Zelda in the pouring rain, his lungs heavy with that same corruption that first bloomed unto the kingdom one hundred years ago.

Light glistens around Link, and he startles minutely, unsure what to make of it. Despite its gleaming allure, he can’t say if the light is good or not, just that it pulls at him restlessly. He knows that he just defeated Calamity Ganon, but somehow it feels like he isn’t quite finished yet.

Heat spreads over him and he is blinded; when he opens his eyes again, he stands in a field, Hyrule Castle waiting for him on the horizon. The daylight carries a fever, making everything hazy and yellow as wisps of darkness skirt through the grass. Something rumbles behind Link, and the ghost of a hand intertwines with his, a phantom by his side. He cannot see her, but he knows she stands with him.

Link turns to face the thundering noise and is met with a brewing storm of burning red and sickly black. It convulses and strains as it tries to take shape. Horns and hooves pierce through the evil gale in a cape of violet flames, as a gargantuan beast forms and crouches low to the ground.

Trembling, Link tries to take it all in. This is not Calamity Ganon, but something far more fearsome. It stands nearly as tall as the largest tower of Hyrule Castle, and its tusks scrape low enough to the ground to leave craters in their wake. With a malicious glower, it unclamps its jaw and roars to the heavens, as though daring the goddesses to challenge it.

This is not Calamity Ganon; this is the incarnate of malice.

This is Dark Beast Ganon.

The unseen hand that he holds morphs into something tangible. Link peers down to see a golden bow grasped taut in his fingers, humming with a brilliant, ethereal light that sends tingles up his arm.

She breathes into his ear, as though she were standing right here with him, _“I entrust you with the Bow of Light—a powerful weapon in the face of evil.”_ He almost hears her sigh. _“Link… you may not be fully recovered, and I know not what you still remember…”_

His steed gallops towards him and Link mounts her thoughtlessly, his weapon drawn at the ready. Ganon casts a large shadow over them, but Zelda maintains her connection with him just a little longer.

_“But courage need not be remembered, for it is never forgotten.”_

They charge. Link does not head directly into the beast, but decides to circle around it; his heart thrums with newfound vigor, Zelda’s words deeply enriched in his chest. Ganon puffs out pillars of energy that slice through the ground like a Guardian’s laser, tenfold.

A bubble of waning light shrouds the entire field, just barely visible. Link knows that is Zelda, and he knows that she is doing what she can to help. He knows she has been doing what she can for the last century, and now it’s his turn to do his part as well. It’s his time to make up for his failure.

Ganon grumbles and turns lethargically to keep its eyes on him, but he’s too fast for it to keep up. Each of its steps send an earthquake that shakes all the land and upsets his horse. Link spurs her along faster and draws back his first Light Arrow, firing it onto the beast’s shoulder. Upon contact, a plume of dark smoke erupts and Ganon staggers to the side.

He narrowly misses another laser, which creates a significant ravine that cuts through the clearing. Link counters with three more successive arrows along its side that elicits an agonizing cry from the demon.

A thunderstorm darts across the darkened skies, but as Link runs underneath it and strikes its belly, it seems to worsen. The coat of flames across its form intensify, like tendrils of sheer power that lash against the air. Link leans down closer against his steed as the storm becomes a deep, spiteful red, swirling rapidly in the sky like the beginnings of a world-ending tornado.

_“Link!”_ he hears, and it brings tears to his eyes because her voice has never sounded so profound or audacious or vivid before, in any of his memories and dreams and visions since he first awoke in the Shrine of Resurrection. _“Look up there!”_

He does, and he sees a crumbling Ganon hardly able to stand anymore, bowing low. On the crow of its head, a halo of light beams proudly into the red darkness.

_“That’s the very core of Ganon’s being!”_ Zelda exclaims, and it feels like she’s on the horse with him, clinging to his back like she always did when they went out to watch the sunrise every morning. _“Do what you must!”_

When they get close enough, Link leaps off the back of his mount. Time comes to a standstill, and his bow gleams with ferocity in his hands as he releases one more arrow. It arcs seamlessly through the air and pierces into the beast, and Link falls to the ground as malice spews from it like viscous blood.

Ganon lets out a broken howl. Link’s vision is spinning and his entire body throbs, but he thinks he can make out the silhouette of an angel up above. Peace settles in him as the beast tries to shy away from the angel’s strength, spiraling up towards the storm clouds in fruitless escape.

The angel does not waver. When it swoops back down to the ground she releases a pulse of pure light that encapsulates everything, and it dissipates into ashes before the light fades and the skies turn blue once more.

Link lets himself go completely, melting into the grass beneath him, the burden he once shouldered finally lifted as the wrath of Ganon is conquered.

He doesn’t know how long he lays there, just that when he opens his eyes again he sees a figure standing just a few feet from him, her white gown free and flowing in the soft breeze. Her back is to him, still facing the empty space that the beast had just filled. He doesn’t know if any of this is real, or if he’s going to wake up any moment, alone and shrouded in uncertainty and gloom again.

But he sits up. And then he stands, his whole body shaking and bleeding but still intact. And he takes a step forward, a singular step, and he feels the breeze tickle his skin, tousle his hair, tell the grass to brush against his trousers.

And, still, Zelda remains. He remains. Hyrule remains.

“I’ve been keeping watch over you all this time,” she mutters, as Link tries taking another step. “I’ve witnessed your struggles to return to us, as well as your trials in battle. I—I always thought… No, I always _believed_ you would defeat Ganon.”

His vision is blurred, and he doesn’t know if it’s from the fatigue or the fresh tears welling in his eyes. He can’t get over how real she sounds. How real she looks, the sun caressing her golden skin and lovely hair.

Zelda turns to face him. “I never lost faith in you over these many years.” She smiles, and her eyes shine brighter than he’s ever seen them. “Thank you, Link. You are the Hero of Hyrule.”

Then something shifts. She seems uncertain as she searches for her words, and Link feels frozen in place. He still grips the Bow of Light in his hands, squeezing it as he clenches his jaw against the concoction of emotions buried within himself.

“May I ask,” she finally starts again, her wording careful. The mere sound of her voice sends chills down his spine. “Do you—do you really remember me?”

The bow falls from Link’s hands, and he feels wet streaks pour down his cheeks in an overflow of something too poignant for him to name. For a brief moment, he falters, as those words settle in his mind. The next moment, he’s sprinting into her arms, holding her so intensely close, streaming his bleeding fingers through her pristine hair and pulling her against his chest and breathing her in.

Link tucks his face into the crook of her neck; he wants to memorize every inch of her softness and perfection and purity.

“How could I ever forget you?” he whispers to her, and he feels more tears fall as she slowly wraps her arms back around him.

She trembles in his embrace and he trembles in hers. They are one, a solidified beacon of safety that he refuses to ever let go of again. When he does, it is not to leave or to pull away. Instead, Link lifts his head to stare into her glistening sapphire gaze and brings a hand to wipe the dampness from her face. He cups her cheek and they smile elatedly at each other, swept up in the high of triumph, and he connects their lips without a moment’s hesitation.

Zelda kisses him back, and the undiluted feeling of love that floods every ounce of Link’s body is indescribable. All that he can think of is how warm she is, how real she is, how she is here and she is in his arms and _she is warm._

They stop, breaths mingling and lips hovering over each other, eyes closed as they absorb it all intimately. Link tells her, confidently, “ _You_ are the Hero of Hyrule, princess,” and she kisses him again.

And when the sun sets on the kingdom that night, it is engulfed in the soothing light of the moon hanging high in the sky, watching over them even through the thickest of darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> im possibly considering an additional, much shorter chapter of pure fluff in the aftermath, but idk when that'll happen if it ever does. regardless hope u like this long ass oneshot thing


End file.
